AA has already said that it is not interested in taking up TWA's 717-200 orders. This would leave me to believe that they plan on replacing TWA's and their own fleet of MD-80s with the 737-800. Also, their F-100 fleet will need to be replaced and one could say that any member of 737NG family could fit the bill. What do you all think?

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid." D. Eisenhower

I think Boeing has enough orders for 737NG in its order books to keep it happy. It will want to keep its Long Beach plant open, and major order from one of the world's formest airlines will go a long way in injecting energy into the program.

If you've read my earlier postings, I've said that Boeing could write up a sweetheart deal where AA takes over the TW 50-plane order for the 717-200 and increase the order to 100+ planes; much of the discount will come from AA trading in their current F100 fleet.

That will allow AA to slowly phase out the Fokker F100, a nice plane but one that will get increasingly expensive to maintain due to fact that getting spares will become more difficult as the years go on; this is due to the fact that Fokker no longer exists.

I was wondering why you believe that AA will stick with the 717 as an F-100/MD-80 replacement when many of the current articles state that AA is not interested in the 717? Are you privy to information that the rest of us are not!!!! I guess I could forsee the 737-800 replacing the MD-80 and the 717 replacing the F-100. That would only increase the number of types in AA's fleet though.

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid." D. Eisenhower

Mergers are not going to help either manufacturer. Airlines will be busy and cash strapped for many years integrating and paying for the mergers. Fewer more powerful airlines will work better prices (lower). Companies like UAL/US or AA/TWA may need some 50 aircraft a year just to maintain their average fleet age but on the whole efficiencies of scale mean less aircraft sales.

There's a reason why I think after AA has a nice long talk with Boeing they will NOT cancel the 717-200 order on the books for TW.

Think about it: Boeing already has a massive backlog of 737NG orders, and it could be 3 years before any newly-ordered 737NG for AA will be delivered to the airline. Why wait three years for new deliveries when AA could get the 717-200 a lot quicker? Please note that AA currently has NOT ordered any 736 or 73G's--it would have to be a new order.

Besides, the 712 offers a lot of parts commality and ease of pilot transition vis-a-vis the MD-80; current pilots trained on the MD-80 can be converted over to the 712 with only a few days of simulator time. And given the large cadre of MD-80 certified pilots, it means the cost of certifying 712 pilots will be very low indeed.

Given that AA does want to make money, getting the 712 makes economic sense in a lot of aspects.

Just to throw in more subjective heresay, think of what might happen. I completely agree with RayChuang. The 717 makes sense for AA. They already fly 273 MD-80 type aircraft. Why not replace it with an identical plane, the 717? Okay, not identical, but yall know what I mean. And, they could use the 737 for 727 replacements only. They could launch The 717-300 as an MD-80 sized replacement. IT just makes sense. Boeing has designed into the 717 the capability to both shrink and grow. I think it makes terrific sense to AA.

And, like he said, it's not like people are lining up to buy 717s. AA could have some delivered new by the end of this year, I bet.